Pichon's second wine gets screwcap closure

Les Tourelles de Longueville, the second wine of illustrious Second Growth Chateau Pichon-Longueville, is being bottled using screwcap for the restaurant and bar market in the UK. Bibendum, which distributes this Bordeaux exclusively to the on-trade, has been constructive in persuading the Chateau to give the idea a go. Buying manager Iain Muggoch told ThirtyFifty that it made much more sense to put the wine under screwcap because it’s made to a style to drink younger. ‘We’ve been seeing what’s being done with Grand Cru Chablis and other top-end wines and the consumer is taking to that,’ he explained. It’s also a logical step for venues where wine is often sold by the glass or over the counter. As a result, the Chateau has sealed some of the new 2004 vintage with screwcaps and Bibendum is now trialling it.

On paper, Les Tourelles is a perfect guinea pig. ‘Wines with a bit of bottle age are most suited to screwcap, along with those with a good intensity and freshness of fruit,’ said Iain.
But when you’ve got a classy wine, looks do count, so the closure is a prestige stelvin, which, ‘looks fantastic’, he said.

However, Bibendum is also offering the same wine under cork. That way the company can not only keep its more traditional closure-conscious customers happy, but also taste the cork and screwcapped bottles alongside each other to see how the wine fares.